With two weeks to go until the annual Alpine pilgrimage to Neudegg Alm and the House of the Holy gathering, I reflect upon one of my rare dabbles into journalism.
Back in 2017, the festival had changed. Previously known as ‘Funkenflug’, this year would have it renamed to the current form, and with it a greater sense of transformation. Through my reputation as an occasional writer, chronicling my experiences in more ephemeral form, I was approached by fellow creative Diana “Sunve” Muschiol to write a report for Via Omega magazine. Although sadly no longer published, the international magazine’s focus on extreme art in all forms – not just music – had previously piqued my interest. Naturally, I leapt at the challenge with garrulous aplomb, presenting a rambling draft awash with detail and personal introspection.
My wandering words were (thankfully) edited down into something more focused. Interspersed with quotes and commentary from the organiser, and embellishing beautiful vistas from renowned photographers.
It was an honour and delight to see my writing in print, and I thank magazine chief Lariyah Perrin and crew for the opportunity.
More than just another disposable festival of drunken stupor and campsite fumbling; the Funkenflug Society presents an ideal. A creative space of substance and sincerity. Three days of music, art and solstice ritual.
A common theme is transformation. The transmutation of the ephemeral into form. Will invokes action, and action invokes result. It is all too easy to languish in the safe realm of the known, believing that to be the limit of existence. But there is a passion, a feeling in the hearts of many that there must be something more. Something greater than the individual. A sense of higher belonging.
Transformation was present on the mountain this year. Previously known as ‘Funkenflug’, this year saw the gathering renamed to ‘House of the Holy’, a refinement of spiritual growth and deeper understanding.
The traditions of place and purpose are evident in every hand-carved corner of the site. This is a lodge of love and blood. Wooden buildings embellished with runes and animal skulls hold the necessary trappings of merchandise, food and drink. Inside the ‘temple’; a throne built of bones and skulls lies empty, representing not a king, but a concept.
Above the stage area, a higher hill is crested by the pyre. The centrepiece of the festival, to be burned at celebration’s crescendo. But this is no superficial feel-good retreat, to be experienced as novelty before returning unchanged to the workaday world. This is a place of visceral honesty, one which may repulse the unwary.
A trio of skinned animal heads rest on a plinth at the centre of the site, constricting and decomposing in the sun. A reminder that death and change is ever-present, even among the wild jubilation of lives lived and loved freely. All must turn to filth, and through this filth new beginnings may spawn.
Friday night saw a smaller fire gathering at the cardinal points surrounding the pyre. Previously, at the entrance each one was given a disc of wood, and through inscription or imagination carved onto it whatever one wished to burn. Theinterpretation of those words was left open. Then everything changed. As the disc fell into the fire, reality snapped into hyper-focus. A symbol aflame, representing a personal aspect of being that no longer served its purpose or was meant to be sacrificed to the fire.
On Saturday different rituals were performed. As dusk fell, a solemn silent torch-lit procession ascended the hill, leading into the deep forest. The darkness beyond the edge of reason.
Some stumbled, some lost their breath and needed to rest briefly, but the procession continued. Deeper and darker, until we came upon a torchlit grove surrounded by trees. Here was a ceremony to the dark heart of the wood. Off kilter music accompanied chanting and indecipherable spoken pieces. As my eyes grew ever more accustomed to the night I saw the hooded performers, devoid of individual identity but instead part of this sacred mystical moment. As much a part of the cosmos as the trees and earth and distant stars.
It is a fascinating aspect of humanity that, of all the conscious creatures, we may comprehend the infinite. Lives so fragile are gone so fast, but we fill them with distractions and excuses for fear of actually living. We trap ourselves in wageslave drudgery and a passionless, medicated existence. Wearing the brand sigils of designer labels as we chug our corporate coffee. Posturing, preening, and neglecting collective potential in favour of pissing and point-scoring.
I looked back into the sky as distant stage lights cast their rays into the black, and I realised that we need empty spaces. We need the indecipherable. We need our god-concepts and empty thrones. We need that which we may never know. How else can we be inspired to grow, to reach beyond our limits if in our arrogance we believe we know everything? We need to be humble. Although just as small and fragile as ever, we may choose to believe in something greater.
Finally there came fire. Headliners Jess and the Ancient Ones played their psychedelic occult rock with renewed vigour as a new procession formed at the front of the stage. Torches held aloft with pride and passion. No solemn silence now, but instead sheer delight. The crowd parted as torchbearers and attendants bound up the hill, and we each took our places around the stone circle. At the apex of the pyre, the alchemic symbol remained. Below it a jawbone sunwheel, each bone painted by a different artist present at the gathering. A collective symbol of renewal and creativity, soon to be engulfed in flame.
The fire burned. In defiance of, or perhaps deference to, the unyielding black skies. It was a clear night despite the smoke, and a galaxy of distant stars twinkled in the night. We embraced and performed our rituals, ever closer to the flame.
We dream among the spires of the earth. Forever grounded by circumstance, yet seeking the inspiration of higher planes. Seeking the mountain. Seeking the distant horizon. Pushing beyond the unknown into that moment where we may finally know our potential. Our passion.
Ourselves.
Originally printed in Via Omega magazine Issue 6 – “The Black Abyss” – August-October 2017.
Republished with permission.